Lviv, Ukraine: The air raid alarm goes off when I am sitting at my desk. First, my mobile phone starts talking to me in an American accent to tell me to seek shelter. Then I hear the neighbourhood sirens in the distance. Then a Ukrainian voice comes over the speaker system in the ceiling.

It is 1.23am on Saturday in Lviv. I am about to sit in a bomb shelter and witness a routine night for millions of people across Ukraine.

Children watch a performance in a basement in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on the weekend. In this area near the Russian border, children study online, have to spend significant time in shelters, and suffer from the stress of daily air raid alerts.Credit: Getty Images

The shelter is a storage area one level below the residence, with a floor of polished concrete and a row of storage cages along the walls. The long space is filled with office chairs, benches, a few lounge chairs and a table. I head for the table with my laptop.

My fellow residents come down the stairs and shuffle into the room without saying a word. Some arrive in groups with pillows and blankets, wearing pyjamas and plastic sandals. They’ve done this before. They know their preferred parts of the room.

I marvel at a young man with a blue doona when he stakes out a place on the cold, hard concrete beside me. He stretches out and prepares to sleep, placing his beige Crocs by his side. He turns away from the fluorescent light and faces the wall.

This is a student residence at the Ukrainian Catholic University, which has kindly allowed me to stay while I interview professors and health experts. The students are likely to know each other, but they do not chat. The only sound is the water in the pipes that run down the wall.

A building in Lviv destroyed by an attack in October.Credit: Anadolu via Getty

I know from the app on my iPhone that all of Ukraine is going through this. The map shows every region is red.

The all-clear sounds at 2:05am. I like the attitude of the iPhone........

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